*An Advanced Statistical Look at Season 27 Running Backs

[ztarwarz]

This is the third article in a series of articles taking a deep dive into some advanced statistics for player evaluation. This project is put together by a team of writers who, after being fed up with a perceived lack of thoroughness taken by the voters on awards, will be publishing an All-Pro team this season and hope to provide the public with additional statistical information not available in the index. The first article on wide receivers can be found HERE. I will draw heavily on information from Mithrandir's stats compilation table found HERE, as well as a bit from my own series, the final part of which can be found HERE.

This article will evaluate Running Backs, because it'd be kind of silly for anyone else to do it.

RUSHING EFFICIENCY

I did an entire series on this, and it was my major reason for making a fuss about last years awards, where an extremely inefficient player got awards consideration and a pro bowl berth because of their stats in spite of this. As such, it's probably not a surprise I will touch on it first.

Rushing First Down Rate

Pretty self explanatory, how often did they get a 1st down with the ball on the ground?

1. Cobra Kai  24.7%
2. Richard Gilbert  23.0%
3. Anders Christiansen   22.9%
4. Joseph Petrongolo   22.5%
5. Gunner Thorbjornsson   22.4%
6. Nicholas Ayers   22.2%
7. Jeffrey Phillips   21.9%
T-8. Tatsu Nakamura   21.4%
T-8. Running Back   21.4%
10. Rando Cardrissian   21.3%


Football Outsiders Efficiency

The series I've been doing for over a month, it's about getting 40% of the yards to gain on 1st downs, 50% on 2nd downs, and 100% on 3rd or 4th downs. This is minus the QBs who took a couple of runs obviously, as well as the people listed as Fullbacks. Among the people who would be on this list, that's only Bronko Mills and QBs.

1. Anders Christiansen   55.5%
2. Gunner Thorbjornsson  53.2%
3. Joseph Petrongolo  48.4%
4. Tatsu Nakamura 42.8%
5. Jameson Vermillion 40%
T-6. Raphtalia Chan 39.9%
T-6. Richard Gilbert 39.9%
8. Running Back 38.8%
9. Captain Rogers 38.0%
10. Acura Skyline   37.1%


Mistake %

How often did you make a mistake when you were involved in a play? How often did you fumble, drop a pass, or commit a penalty? Or in this case, how often did you avoid those mistakes?

1. Running Back 0.41%
2. Anders Christiansen 0.56%
T-3. Jameson Vermillion  0.59%
T-3. Baby Yoda  0.59%
5. Ashley Owens   0.68%
6. Jamar Lackson   0.76%
7. Matthias Hanyadi   0.77%
8. Jeffrey Phillips   0.78%
9. Darrell Williams   0.83%
10. Raphtalia Chan 0.89%

Yards Per Carry

The classic efficiency rating, how many yards on average did you get per carry?

1. Jamar Lackson   5.3
2. Gunner Thorbjornsson   5.2
3. Julio Tirtawidjaja   5.1
T-4. Tatsu Nakamura   5.0
T-4. Raphtalia Chan   5.0
6. Joseph Petrongolo   4.9
T-7. Darrell Williams   4.8
T-7. Richard Gilbert   4.8
T-9. Acura Skyline  4.6
T-9. Cobra Kai   4.6


VOLUME STATS

"But what about the total stats?" the voters cry. Who got the most TDs? Who got the most yards? Who cares about how much usage they got to get there? Well, those are also important so let's put them on the board.

Yards from Scrimmage

This counts both rushing and receiving.

1. Tatsu Nakamura   1998 yards
2. Raphtalia Chan   1715 yards
3. Jeffrey Phillips 1642 yards
4. Baby Yoda   1632 yards
5. Nicholas Ayers 1562 yards
6. Zoe Watts 1535 yards
7. Jamar Lackson 1522 yards
8. Darrell Williams   1515 yards
9. Richard Gilbert  1481 yards
10. Cobra Kai  1200 yards


Total Points

Again, both rushing and receiving.

1. Raphtalia Chan   126
2. Tatsu Nakamura   108
3. Baby Yoda 102
4. Richard Gilbert   90
5. Darrell Williams   72
6. Jamar Lackson   66
T-7. Acura Skyline   60
T-7. Joseph Petrongolo   60
T-9. Sam Torenson   54
T-9. Captain Rogers   54
T-9. Jameson Vermillion   54
T-9. Nicholas Ayers   54
T-9. Julio Tirtawidjaja   54


Explosive Plays

The general term for plays of at least 20 yards. Again, this counts both rushing and receiving.

T-1. Tatsu Nakamura   22
T-1. Jamar Lackson   22
3. Baby Yoda 18
T-4. Darrell Williams 16
T-4. Zoe Watts   16
6. Nicholas Ayers   15
T-7. Raphtalia Chan   13
T-7. Julio Tirtawidjaja   13
9. Jeffrey Phillips   12
T-10. Mai Fukushu   10
T-10. Richard Gilbert   10
T-10. Jameson Vermillion   10




Alright, so who are the best running backs in the league this year?

Honorable Mentions:

Anders Christiansen & Gunner Thorbjornsson

These guys get covered together because they both would be considered for the same reason; over 50% FO Efficiency and some of the highest First Down Rush rate, along with getting a total of 6 touchdowns apiece. Thing is, they ran the ball barely over 100 times combined, not enough to get onto the actual list but enough to get into the honorable mentions.

Julio Tirtawidjaja
Tirtawidjaja's the other side of the coin on excellent low usage players, with some pretty terrible efficiency stats outside of yards per carry (4th lowest First Down rate, 35.1% FO Efficiency) but in that low usage he had as many touchdowns as about half of the league's starting backs, and more explosive plays than half of the starting backs.

Nicobra Kaiers
Really I just wanted to give these guys a shoutout, neither would make the Honorable Mentions list on their own, but only because they stat shared so evenly that they were only 300 yards off from each other and a single touchdown. If one had robbed the other of a few hundred yards and a few touchdowns then they'd probably get the 5th spot, or at least contend for it.

Baby Yoda
Yoda had a ton of usage, a ton of explosive plays and touchdowns, and had a low mistake %. His efficiency, however, was terrible: the 6th lowest First Down rate, an FO Efficiency rate that is tied for the 4th worst among RB1s and is almost lower than 33%, and his 4.2 yards per carry isn't exactly bad, but it does fall outside the top 10, unlike everyone that actually did make the top 5 Running Back list.


5. Richard Gilbert 

The first member of the top 5 Running Backs of S27, Gilbert gets the nod here due to his great mix of efficiency and volume. Of these top 5 I'd say he's the 3rd most efficient, but he does lose out in that he is the 2nd least productive. That doesn't make him bad, not in the slightest! He has the 4th most touchdowns, is top 10 in Explosive Plays, Yards per Carry, FO Efficiency Rate, and is the best RB1 in regards to First Down rate, beating even his excellent RB2 in that regard. What kept him from going any higher? He just didn't excel in anything. He wasn't extremely efficient, he wasn't extremely productive. He was good in volume and great in efficiency which was enough to get him past 9 other RB1s, it's just not enough to get him higher than 5th.

4. Joseph Petrongolo

Depending on whether you look at efficiency or volume first, you would either wonder why I only put Petrongolo at 4 or you would wonder why he's on that list at all. The negatives are pretty blatant: he's just outside the top 10 in yards with close to 300 less than the closest player to him on this list, about 15th in explosive plays, only 10 total touchdowns, volume-wise Petrongolo was one of the worst RB1s in the league and almost worse than a couple RB2s. But on the flip side, that efficiency is dynamite: 4.9 yards per carry, 22.5% First Down rate, and he's over 5% clear of anyone else in FO Efficiency with at least 100 carries. I value efficiency a bit more over volume, at least once you get to the almost 200 carries he had, and thus I give Petrongolo the 4th spot. Everyone else on the list had a ton more usage, and if Petrongolo had 100 more carries and the same efficiency he would definitely have made the top 3, if not number 1.

3. Jamar Lackson 

Lackson is the answer to the question "What happens if we take Tirtawidjaja and give him almost 4 times the carries?" Boasting the highest yards per carry rate in the league, a full 0.3 yards above anyone else with over 100 carries, and tied for the most explosive plays out of anyone considered for this list. He also has one of the lowest mistake % scores to boot. He had to make the list, if only due to his prowess in those places. The problem? He only succeeded in those places. He had the 12th best FO Success rate, and his first down rate was outside the top 15 in the league. His low touchdown total also prevents me from moving him into the top 2. Still, when he feasted, Lackson feasted. 5.3 yards per carry is truly ridiculous.

2. Raphtalia Chan

I can hear Sailfish players accusing me of being a homer already, but hear me out. Let's start with the positives: Chan had a monstrous season, getting over 20 touchdowns in total and the second most scrimmage yards in the entire league. She was one of only 3 starting backs with a yards per carry above 5 (well, technically it's like 4.9993 or something dumb like that, but still). She tied for the 3rd highest FO Success rate of all the RB1s in the league. So what put her below number 1? Well, first she wasn't all that great in First Down, at 18.5 she was just barely inside the top 15 of Rushing First Down rate and it would look even worse if you included Receiving First Down rate. Second, she gets beaten out in everything that isn't mistake % for efficiency by the number 1 player on the list. Finally, I do have to ding her for playing against the Hawks twice; they gave up 160+ yards per game rushing, beating the second worst Liberty by 55 yards per game. She got to play the Hawks twice, and in the second game she ran for only 39 yards as the Sailfish got half the rushing yards of any other team against the Hawks. Getting to play the worst Rushing Defense in the league for a second time and completely squandering the opportunity is the final nail in the coffin to keep her out of number 1. At least Frost can rest safe in the knowledge that his player, for once, did not suck lmap.

1. Tatsu Nakamura 

Okay, I might get accused of being a homer here, but there are a couple of things that make this easy for me. First off, Nakamura had about the same lead in yardage ratio-wise that Chan had in Touchdowns. Then, in everything that isn't mistake %, where he's only a bit below Chan, and Yards per Carry, where Nakamura leads by 0.001 yards per carry (yes, seriously), Nakamura beats Chan by significant amounts. He's almost 3% better in FO efficiency and First Down rate, he's counting 2 point conversions as part of the mix away from a 2000 yard season from scrimmage. Mistake % was literally the only think he wasn't in the top 10 in, and the only other thing he wasn't in the top 5 in was Rushing 1st Down rate. And for how heavily he was used, more than anyone else in the league, it was all the more impressive that he managed to stay as efficient as he was. As such, even accounting for bias I can confidently say Nakamura was the best running back in the league this season.

[Swanty]

Amazing work! You've absolutely killed it with the tracking of RB performance this season. Love the use of all the different metrics, and really paints an interesting picture beyond just volume + YPC.

[AdamS]

13 out of 14 teams are represented here

the 14th is Nola

so if you're unsure about Slothlisberger for MVP...there you go

[OrbitingDeath]

Nice research, thanks for your efforts in this!

[Faded]

kai x ayers fanfic when

[bluesfan55]

that efficiency tho